SB    273 


THE  GENESIS  OF  WAR  AND  THE 
FOUNDATION  OF  PEACE 

by 
GERVAISE  RUNDALL 


SAN  FRANCISCO 

A.  M.  ROBERTSON 

MCMXVIII 


COPYRIGHT,  1918 

BY 
GERVAISE  RUNDALL 


DONE  BY  PHILOPOLIS  PRESS 
SAN  FRANCISCO 


THE  GENESIS  OF  WAR  AND  THE 
FOUNDATION  OF  PEACE 

PART  I pages   7-29 

In  the  Presence  of  the  Beast 
The  Pebble  of  Understanding 

PART  II    .     .     .     ...     .     .     .     .     pages  30-46 

The  Narrow  Areas  of  Regenerate  Life 
A  Surging  Barbaric  World 
The  Gleam  of  Destiny 


'66865 


THE  GENESIS  OF  WAR  AND  THE 
FOUNDATION  OF  PEACE 

OINCE  that  August  day  when  this  fearful 
war  fell  upon  the  world,  we  have!  been  "treated;  •,  ?;' 
by  press,  platform,  and  pulpit,  to  a  confusing 
variety  of  thoughts  concerfti.ngVi.ti ,,]>''',''•  •'',  * '  ;  ' 

We  have  Treitschke  and  Bernhardi,  who 
dismiss  the  imminence  of  a  vital  step  in  the 
spiritual  evolution  of  the  race  and,  assuming 
the  permanence  of  the  status  quo  of  the  law 
of  claw  and  fang,  ably  apply  themselves  to  a 
demonstration  of  the  virtue  of  war  as  a  means 
of  Teutonic  self-preservation  and  expansion. 

We  have  the  conventional-minded  clergy 
who,  with  an  even  less  consistent  notion  of 
the  reign  of  sequence  and  order  in  the  uni- 
verse, no  sooner  hear  of  war's  advent  than 
they  busy  themselves  mightily  in  organizing 
a  nation-wide  prayer  for  peace,  all  the  while 
deliciously  innocent  of  any  comprehension  of 
their  own  past,  present  and  continuing  con- 
tribution to  the  causes  that  alone  lead  to  war. 


The   Genesis   of  War  and 

We  have  one  belligerent's  frank  announce- 
ment of  the  "law  of  necessity/'  and  a  com- 
plete gamut  of  opinions  from  all  sources  upon 
the  scope  and  authority  of  international  law, 
upon  the  rights  and  duties  of  neutrals,  upon 
humane  treatment  of  the  enemy  and  of  non- 
combatants.  The  authority  of  precedent  is 
strenuously  denied  and  as  vigorously  upheld. 

Where,  in  all  this  maze  of  thinking,  lies  the 
truth? 

In  proceeding  to  disentangle  and  lay 
straight  in  our  understanding  the  elements  of 
any  one  of  the  complex  problems  that  harass 
the  life  of  the  race,  it  is  necessary  to  trace  pres- 
ent conditions  from  their  point  of  origin.  It 
may  be  said,  strictly,  that  the  finite  mind  is  not 
capable  of  dealing  with  origins.  But  we  can 
greatly  aid  our  thinking  by  excluding  inci- 
dentals and  thereby  reducing  the  complexity 
of  the  problem  to  its  simplest  terms;  we  can 
return,  in  our  thought,  to  that  stage  of  de- 
velopment where  human  life  included  only 
the  simple,  fundamental  relations  and  experi- 
ences. Today  it  includes  essentially  no  more, 

8 


The  Foundation  of  Peace 

but  our  perception  of  this  truth  is  confused 
by  a  massed  froth  of  detail.  In  all  the  world's 
literature  of  fiction  there  are  said  to  be  no 
more  than  a  score  of  distinct  plots.  The  en- 
grossing and  all  but  infinite  variety  of  tale  is 
obtained  by  mere  superficial  differences  of  in- 
cident and  circumstance. 

It  is  so  with  life.  The  elements  in  its  prob- 
lems are  few.  A  comprehensive  and  balanced 
philosophy  of  life  is  not  the  abstruse  thing  it 
seems,  possible  only  to  philosophers  of  pre- 
tentious and  resounding  phrase.  If  the  vital 
essentials  of  a  sound  philosophy  were  possible 
of  ready  comprehension  only  by  the  minds  of 
these  few,  it  would  tend  to  negative  the  pri- 
mary hypothesis  of  all  human  thought — that 
the  universe  is  under  a  just  and  beneficent 
rule.  In  first  seeking  to  understand  life, 
therefore,  that  we  may  understand  war,  the 
problem  is  one  for  direct  and  simple  thought 
and  simple  words.  It  is  well  within  the  in- 
tellectual scope  of  the  average  man. 

Life  is  not  a  stationary  set  of  conditions. 
It  is  an  evolution.  It  is  not  a  repeating  circle, 


The   Genesis   offf^ar  and 

but  an  advancing  spiral.  Its  characterizing 
trend,  in  spite  of  local  variation,  is  toward 
greater  good.  This  upward  trend  is  insured 
to  all  life  by  the  unheralded  presence  of  a 
commanding  principle,  or  instinct,  that,  un- 
detected, weaves  its  sufficient  spell  upon  con- 
duct and  in  its  influence  provides  for  the 
thoughtful  an  unmistakable  sign  that  a  just 
and  beneficent  power  is  in  control.  It  is  but 
a  corollary  to  this  truth  that  the  control  is 
absolute,  undisputed,  and  that  the  life  of  the 
universe  is  conducted  in  accordance  with  a 
comprehensive  plan,  in  view  of  whose  funda- 
mental outlines  all  seeming  confusion,  dis- 
order and  wrong  would  be  revealed  as  the 
transitional  mechanism  for  attaining  a  higher 
level  of  order  and  well-being  than  would 
otherwise  be  possible. 

Rivalry,  antagonism,  conflict,  battles  unto 
death,  destruction  of  the  lives  of  other  beings 
to  feed  and  furnish  or  free  the  life  of  the  de- 
stroyer, are  so  marked  a  feature  of  all  exis- 
tence, from  the  lowest  to  the  highest  on 
earth,  that  it  is  idle  to  seek  grounds  for  assert- 

10 


The  Foundation  of  Peace 

ing  that  such  strife  is  external  to  the  Plan  and 
disapproved  by  its  Author.  Wherever  con- 
flict is  found,  it  has  evolved  naturally  and  in- 
escapably out  of  antecedent  conditions,  and  it 
supplies  the  logical  and  exclusive  means  by 
which  the  conscious  beings  who  are  immersed 
in  such  antecedent  conditions  can  possibly 
elevate  themselves  to  the  stage  next  higher. 
Doubtless  a  level  will  ultimately  be  reached 
where  conflict,  in  the  form  of  physical  vio- 
lence, will  have  served  its  necessary  purpose 
and  be  left  behind. 

In  the  far  reaching  and  painful  way  along 
which  strife  and  violence  are  the  companions 
of  all  conscious  life  in  its  slow  evolution 
through  animal  forms  from  lowest  to  highest, 
the  mission  of  strife  and  the  pain  it  brings  is 
doubtless,  in  part,  (in  addition  to  providing 
the  intense  stimulus  of  necessity  for  the  evo- 
lution of  individual  powers  and  efficiency, 
and,  conceivably,  providing  in  the  perfect 
memory  of  the  subjective  mind  a  background 
of  suffering  as  an  element  of  contrast  essen- 
tial to  a  capacity  for  the  long  happiness  we 

ii 


The    Genesis   of  War  and 

believe  we  are  destined  to  know  in  future 
realms)  to  stimulate  the  evolving  conscious- 
ness to  finally  conceive  and  set  up  an  order 
of  social  life  that  shall  be  above  the  need  of 
physical  strife,  that  shall  retain  the  benefits 
it  has  unquestionably  conferred,  while  avoid- 
ing the  pain  and  disaster  that  have  attended 
it. 


WHEN  an  animal,  or  primitive  man,  desires 
a  thing,  he  goes  and  takes  it — if  he  can.  This 
is  and  must  be  in  accordance  with  the  Plan 
for  that  stage  of  development.  But  life  is  not 
stationary.  It  is  an  evolution.  And  from  time 
to  time  evolving  organisms  experience  critical 
stages  of  transforming  change.  Sooner  or 
later  the  ranging  soul  experiences  a  series  of 
roughly  defeated  purposes  through  the  greater 
strength  of  others  who  desire  the  same  things. 
Sooner  or  later,  when  consciousness  has  been 
sufficiently  evolved,  when  one  has  become 
aware  and  somewhat  weary  of  the  destruc- 
tiveness  of  continual  fighting,  and  when  he 

12 


The  Foundation  of  Peace 

has  by  force  been  despoiled  of  a  thing  he  had 
made  with  labor  and  care,  or  had  held  by 
long  usage,  he  comes  to  feel  there  is  a  higher 
law  than  the  law  of  might,  and  he  appeals  to 
it.  Here  is  the  dawn  of  ethics  in  the  individual 
consciousness. 

For  unnumbered  centuries  the  crude  chil- 
dren of  earth  have  struggled  with  this  baffling 
spiritual  problem,  luring  them  slowly  upward 
to  their  high  and  distant  heritage.  Spiritual 
leaders  have  had  birth  in  all  the  races  to  aid 
them  and  quicken  their  insight.  In  the  Gol- 
den Rule  and  in  other  teachings  has  the  single 
essence  of  the  law  of  right  and  profitable  con- 
duct been  given  them.  These  teachings  may 
be  summarized  in  a  single,  comprehensive 
LAW  OF  JUSTICE,  which  requires  that  *TO 

EVERY  SOUL  SHALL  BE  INVIOLABLY  PRESERVED 


*This  formula  for  expressing  the  ethical  principle  which,  alone, 
can  be  justified  as  a  mandate  restricting  conduct  in  its  social  bearings, 
is  here  quoted  from  a  manuscript  written  two  years  earlier. 

There  its  derivation  and  its  absolute  right  to  the  exclusive  posi- 
tion given  it  are  worked  out  in  what  is  meant  to  be  a  thorough 
manner.  Some  attention  is  given  to  its  application  to  social  life 
in  general,  but  the  chief  purpose  of  that  volume  is  to  attack  in  a 

'3 


The   Genesis   of  War  and 

AN  EQUAL  FREEDOM  AND  OPPORTUNITY  TO 
MAKE  USE  OF  ENVIRONMENT  IN  HIS  OWN  WAY 
FOR  THE  PROMOTION  OF  HIS  OWN  WELL-BEING 

AS  HE  CONCEIVES  IT.  This  is  the  totality  and 
completeness  of  moral  law. 

more  thorough  and  decisive  manner  than  is  usual,  in  the  many  volumes 
on  the  subject,  the  problem  of  revealing  the  precise  reason  why 
society  finds  itself  in  the  wretched  dilemma  where  it  now  is  and 
practically  always  has  been  with  respect  to  the  most  vitally  im- 
portant, because  potentially  the  most  beautiful  and  power-giving, 
phase  of  human  life. 

This  larger  volume  the  author  hopes  to  publish  before  the  end  of 
the  present  year.  In  it  he  believes  he  has  been  able  to  show  that 
the  entire  schedule  of  virtues  mentioned  by  writers  on  ethics,  and 
including  the  "Eight  Cardinal  Virtues"  announced  by  Aristotle, 
are  clearly  reducible  to  three  fundamental  virtues;  that  the  third 
of  these,  relating  exclusively  to  social  conduct,  and  the  ethical 
principle  of  which  is  expressed  in  the  "Law  of  Justice"  above,  is 
merely  a  special  form  of  the  second,  which  relates  primarily  to 
conduct  in  its  reaction  upon  self,  the  result  of  this  reduction  being, 
therefore,  to  show  that  all  wise  and  profitable  conduct  whatsoever 
flows  from  the  observation  of  two,  only,  primary  and  irreducible 
principles  of  action,  this  analysis  tending  in  a  marked  degree  to 
clarify  the  complex  and  terribly  difficult  problem  of  right  living; 
and,  further,  that  of  these  two  comprehensive,  primary  virtues, 
the  first,  though  given  no  more  than  an  obscure  place  and  indirect 
attention  by  writers  on  ethics,  practically  without  exception,  is 
nevertheless  deserving  of  the  place  here  given  it  as  the  major  princi- 
ple of  all  right  conduct. 


The  Foundation  of  Peace 

There  is,  in  clear  understanding,  no  other 
moral  law.  All  of  the  multitude  of  pro- 
nouncements which  assume  to  be  such  and 
which  are  in  the  smallest  respect  out  of 
parallel  with  this,  are  based  upon  miscon- 
ception. To  pilot  the  social  life  by  such  a 
defective  chart  makes  some  degree  of  event- 
ual disaster  a  certainty.  This  Law  of  Justice 
is  the  all-sufficient  guide  for  the  regener- 
ation of  social  well-being,  to  the  limit  which 
is  possible  with  a  given  scientific  knowledge  of 
environment. 

But  the  grasp  of  the  average  mind  upon 
the  ethical  principle,  even  in  this  "modern" 
day,  is  a  faltering  one,  and  its  application  to 
specific  cases  is  more  often  grotesque  than 
clear-minded  and  true.  The  spirit  is  weary  of 
antagonism  and  longs  for  justice,  but  the 
weight  of  custom  is  heavy  and  the  ways  of 
the  uncomprehending  are  ruthless  ways. 
Long,  long  baffled  have  been  the  efforts  of  the 
enlightened  few  to  build  up  from  its  founda- 
tion in  the  depths  and  maintain  a  blessed  isle 
of  justice,  security  and  peace  in  this  angry 


The   Genesis   of  War  and 

and  treacherous  sea  of  social  life.  Faith 
teaches  us  that  a  broad  continent  must  here 
have  its  beginning.  And  soundings  reveal 
that  the  submerged  base  is  building  broader 
and  higher.  Each  emerging  islet,  beaten  down 
and  scattered  by  the  waves  of  intolerance, 
serves  to  broaden  and  lift  the  sure  foundation. 
Headway  is  perceptible,  but  it  is  slow,  slow. 

When  two  primitive  men,  evenly  matched 
and  weary  of  fighting,  agree  to  withhold  the 
club  while  they  discuss  the  right  of  the  mat- 
ter, then  if  by  rare  good  fortune  they  be 
approximately  alike  in  their  understanding, 
and  their  weariness,  they  may  find  it  possible 
to  agree  upon  a  basis  for  peace.  But  such  an 
agreement  between  men  of  slight  moral  de- 
velopment can  never  be  more  than  tentative. 
Its  continuance  depends  wholly  upon  the  con- 
tinuance of  their  similar  understanding  of  the 
beneficent  possibilities  of  peace  and  their 
equal  reluctance  to  resume  conflict. 

This  applies  alike  to  the  relations  between 
two  individuals,  two  tribes,  two  nations,  two 
allied  groups  of  nations.  A  peace  of  exhaus- 

16 


The  Foundation  of  Peace 

tion,  of  awaited  opportunity,  is  a  false  peace. 
It  is  not  peace  at  all.  It  is  the  ominous  still- 
ness of  ambush,  while  the  spirit  of  revenge  or 
the  greed  of  conquest  bides  a  ripened  time. 
Though  it  may  continue  for  decades  or  gener- 
ations, those  who  love  peace  for  its  spiritual 
values  and  significance  delude  themselves  if 
they  believe  they  look  out  upon  a  world  essen- 
tially at  peace.  No  nation  of  the  world  has 
yet  known  a  peace  that  was  not  thus  tenta- 
tive and  precarious.  While  we  live  on  earth 
the  soul  is  enmeshed  in  the  flesh,  the  pulses 
run  hot,  the  pains  of  former  generations'  wars 
are  not  felt,  wide  differences  of  national  envi- 
ronment induce  widely  different  trends  of 
national  thought  and  life,  inevitably  there  re- 
sult slowly  intensifying  antagonisms  that  be- 
come wholly  irreconcilable — in  the  present 
stage  of  moral  and  intellectual  development — 
and  war  is  the  one  solution.  And  war  will 
come  repeatedly,  with  sure  sequence — if  there 
be  not  some  greater  consideration  to  restrain. 
In  precisely  the  same  class  with  the  zeal- 
ously repeated  effort  and  mistaken  hope  to 


The   Genesis  of  War  and 

attain  in  world  affairs  a  genuine  and  perma- 
nent peace  on  this  false,  tentative  basis,  are 
those  efforts  to  permanently  mitigate  the 
ferocity  of  conflict.  Neither  an  absence  of 
warfare,  nor  humanity  and  fairness  in  war- 
fare, are  in  the  slightest  degree  to  be 
depended  upon  in  an  unregenerate  world, 
unless  they  are  enforced  by  a  superior  power 
or  by  considerations  of  expediency  and  self-in- 
terest. In  ordinary  wars  the  public  opinion 
of  the  world  may  be  sufficient  to  prevent 
wholesale  and  official  resort  to  methods  dis- 
approved by  that  opinion,  since  the  preserva- 
tion of  favorable  international  repute  is  an 
asset  of  future  self-interest.  But  the  most 
commanding  consideration  of  self-interest  is 
that  of  self-preservation,  and  in  a  war  to  the 
death,  which  this  war  virtually  is,  it  is  idle 
to  expect  that  the  controlling  dynastic  groups 
in  any  nation,  whose  continued  existence  un- 
der tolerable  conditions  is  sharply  menaced, 
will  be  influenced  in  their  choice  of  means  by 
considerations  of  humanity  or  international 
law.  Pretexts  and  sophistries  will  be  cleverly 

18 


The  F  o  undation   ofPeace 

advanced  to  maintain  a  seeming  of  conven- 
tional conduct,  but  their  course  of  action  will 
be  most  consistently  dictated  by  the  sole  con- 
sideration of  advantage. 

A  nation  driven  to  the  last  extremity  will 
dismiss  an  inherently  tentative  understand- 
ing for  lessening  the  horrors  of  war  and  will 
invoke  the  law  of  claw  and  fang  to  the  utter- 
most. An  individual,  in  an  extremity,  may 
sacrifice  his  life  rather  than  preserve  it  by 
means  that  would  cause  those  he  holds  dearest 
to  regard  him  as  dishonored.  But  a  nation  in 
an  extremity  is  made  up  of  individuals  who 
are  planning  and  fighting  not  for  themselves 
so  much  as  for  others  of  their  own  blood  and 
closest  personal  ties.  Here,  in  the  extremity 
of  international  strife,  a  national  altruism  dic- 
tates the  dismissal  of  humane  conventions  and 
spurs  the  resort  to  the  ultimate  of  ferocity 
against  a  common  enemy.  In  the  present 
war,  where  the  announced  intention  of  each 
side  is  the  final  crushing  of  the  very  military 
existence  of  the  other,  where  half  a  world's 
resources  are  set  against  the  other  half,  where 

19 


The  Genesis   of  War  and 

zeal,  organization,  efficiency,  effort,  are  at 
an  undreamed  of  maximum,  the  law  of  neces- 
sity logically  comes  into  play  and  all  inher- 
ently tentative  agreements  are  properly  cast 
to  the  winds,  so  far  as  this  action  does  not 
reasonably  threaten  to  bring  more  loss  than 
gain.  It  is  inevitably  a  question  of  expe- 
diency. There  exists  a  wholly  irreconcilable 
difference  of  opinion  as  to  right  and  the  entire 
immediate  appeal  of  all  directly  concerned  is 
to  the  law  of  might. 


1  HE  individual  is  strictly  typical  of  the 
state,  in  ethical  relations.  Even  such  crude 
civil  order  and  peace  as  we  now  find  in  organized 
states  could  not  be  enjoyed  until  in  the  pre- 
ceding unorganized  and  barbaric  population 
there  came  to  be  a  sufficient  number,  loving 
peace,  to  subdue  and  control  the  less  devel- 
oped and  enforce  upon  them  the  measures 
designed  to  establish  it. 

It  is  precisely  so  in  the  world  society  of 
which  the  nations,  instead  of  individuals,  are 

20 


The  Foundation  of  Peace 

units.  Here  the  order-loving  element  have 
not  yet  united  in  controlling  numbers.  Cun- 
ning and  might  are  still  supreme.  The  inter- 
national world  is  a  primitive,  barbaric  world. 
The  first  semblance  of  a  fairly  dependable 
peace  will  come  in  world  society  as  it  did  in 
the  primitive  populations,  viz.:  when  a  con- 
trolling group  of  its  peace-loving  units  organ- 
ize to  impose  upon  the  rest  of  the  social  units, 
by  persuasion  and  by  physical  force,  a  cessa- 
tion of  warfare  with  its  intolerable  pains  and 
burdens. 

That  motive  is  strongly  evident  among  the 
social  units  of  the  international  world  today. 
The  present  war  has  gone  beyond  the  control 
of  conventional  rules.  It  has,  logically,  nat- 
urally and  inescapably,  become  a  desperation. 
It  has  unleashed  the  depths  and  heights  of 
human  ferocity.  It  is  fanatically  inflicting 
upon  all  the  world's  arrested  enterprises  of 
personal  well-being  its  dread  maximum  pen- 
alty, heavy  beyond  all  comprehension.  It 
marks  the  breaking  point  of  human  tolerance. 
A  transforming  change  in  the  affairs  of  the 

21 


The   Genesis   of  War  and 

race  is  imminent.  A  competent  defense  of  the 
world  against  such  tragic  possibilities  must  be 
set  up.  In  its  international  phase  human  so- 
ciety must  take  the  step  that  shall  lift  it  from 
a  raging,  wanton  barbarism  upward  to  the 
lowest  level  in  the  realm  of  order  and  peace — 
an  enforced  discontinuance  of  war  as  a  means 
of  adjusting  differences  between  nations  or 
other  groups. 

Exercising  the  greatest  care  to  be  just  and 
to  have  no  hasty  or  partisan  thought,  it  seems 
impossible  to  avoid  the  conclusion,  from  the 
mass  of  data,  that  the  hope  of  the  world  for 
an  effective  organization  of  peace-loving  na- 
tions, at  the  close  of  this  war,  that  shall  im- 
pose upon  world  affairs  an  era  of  peace  with  a 
tolerable  and  wholesome  degree  of  justice, 
rests  with  a  victory  of  the  allied  forces.* 
Rationally  interpreted,  the  indications  would 
seem  to  be  that  with  a  German  victory  that 
nation's  ruling  policy  would  be  one  of  expan- 

*This  booklet  was  written  in  June,  1915,  when  America  was  trying 
to  preserve  an  "honorable"  neutrality,  for  which  she  is  now  very 
tardily  striving  to  redeem  herself. 

22 


The  Foundation  of  Peace 

sion,  of  aggrandizement,  of  advantage  over 
other  nations  wherever  possible.  Ten  times 
the  overmastering  power,  military  glory,  do- 
minion and  established  permanence  of  a 
Roman  Empire  is  their  fondest  dream. 

For  the  present  catastrophe  all  nations 
share  the  guilt,  clearly  enough,  though  it  were 
more  intelligent  to  say,  instead,  that  all  have 
been  alike  at  a  stage  of  their  aeon-long  de- 
velopment, from  zero  toward  infinity,  where 
the  truth  that  underlies  abiding  peace  was  as 
yet  unrealized  and  impossible  to  their  minds. 
Therefore,  for  a  conventionally  neutral  per- 
son, or  nation  (without  direct  material  or  per- 
sonal interest  in  the  immediate  causes  of  this 
conflict),  to  decide  where  to  yield  preference 
and  give  aid — in  consequence  of  a  realization 
of  the  inherent  responsibilities  of  world-citi- 
zenship— the  determining  consideration  is 
not  at  all  one  based  upon  the  delusive  concep- 
tion of  guilt,  in  itself,  but  is  wholly  one  of  the 
relative  development  of  the  contending  groups 
in  intellectual  perception  and  sympathetic  in- 
sight into  the  more  intimate  and  heartfelt 

23 


The    Genesis   of  War  and 

human  affairs;  wholly  one  of  their  relative 
value  as  prospective  ministers  of  common, 
elementary  justice  to  a  confused  and  tortured 
world.  Intimate  study  of  the  national  life  of 
the  contending  states  would  seem  to  firmly 
found  confidence  that  the  allied  nations  stand 
distinctly  closer  to  a  realization  of  the  long 
repeated  lessons  of  war  and  of  other  social  ex- 
perience. They  avowedly  seek  the  ideal  of 
race  autonomy.  They  have  emphatically  de- 
clared that  this  war  must  end  in  crushing 
militarism  from  the  face  of  the  earth.  It  is  in 
a  high  degree  probable  that  a  victory  of  the 
allied  nations  would  be  followed  soon  by  their 
taking  steps  to  organize  a  federation  of  na- 
tions whose  prime  purpose  should  be  to  ren- 
der war  an  impossibility  in  future.  Whether 
it  might  succeed  without  exception  is  a  differ- 
ent question.  In  any  case  it  is  the  step  to 
anticipate  now. 

For  those  who  judge  the  situation  and 
the  possibilities  as  they  are  here  judged,  who 
realize  that  the  vital  destinies  of  the  entire 
world  for  centuries  to  come  are  now  in  the 

24 


The  Foundation  of  Peace 

balance  and  that  the  extremity  in  which  the 
warring  nations  find  themselves  inexorably 
extends  to  include  us  all,  who  believe  that 
with  the  victory  of  one  side  and  not  the  other 
will  come  an  opportunity  for  a  transforming 
advance  in  the  affairs  of  the  race,  there  can 
be  no  such  thing  as  an  intelligent  and  honor- 
able neutrality  in  this  war.  No  other  conflict 
has  involved  such  issues  and  possibilities. 
The  time-honored  etiquette  of  neutrality  is 
void  and  utterly  consumed  in  the  fierce  fire 
of  a  zeal  for  human  welfare,  kindled  by  the 
imminence  of  a  great  opportunity. 


IT  would  seem,  both  by  direct  reason  and 
by  analogies  in  the  history  of  civil  peace,  that 
the  most  feasible  plan  for  policing  the  world 
against  war  would  be  to  have  one  armed  force, 
military  and  naval,  dissociated  from  the  con- 
stituent nations  of  the  federation  and  under 
the  direction  of  the  central  power,  and  to  for- 
bid all  other  armament  of  a  kind  effective 
against  it  in  war.  The  existence  of  this  force 


T  h  e  Genesis   of  IF  a  rand 

would  not  necessarily  be  an  intolerable  men- 
ace to  the  liberties  of  any  people.  Every 
organized  state  now  existing,  while  preserv- 
ing far  more  quiet  within  its  domain  than  had 
been  experienced  before  the  organization  of 
states  and  their  police  power,  has  neverthe- 
less used  that  police  power  to  the  oppression, 
in  some  degree,  of  certain  elements  in  its 
population.  This  feature  of  life  is  wholly 
unavoidable  in  an  unregenerate  world.  The 
abuse  of  power  is  gradually  lessening,  though 
still  marked,  even  in  America.  But  with  the 
lesson  of  the  present  war  before  them,  the  risk 
of  the  serious  misuse  of  the  armed  power  of  a 
federation  of  the  nations  would  be  distinctly 
lessened,  for  some  decades,  at  least.  By  that 
time  the  ideals  of  democracy  will  have  much 
further  advanced  their  hold  upon  national 
affairs,  for  these  are  quickening  days.  This, 
together  with  the  fact  that  the  most  enlight- 
ened men  available  to  the  current  political 
regimes  of  the  time  would  undoubtedly  repre- 
sent the  nations  in  the  proposed  federated 
government,  would  steadily  increase  the 

26 


The  Foundation  of  Peace 

world's  assurance  of  the  proper  conduct  of 
that  body.  In  any  case  the  risks  involved  are 
unavoidable,  the  world  being  as  it  is,  and  the 
means  proposed  offers  the  sole  prospect  of  re- 
lieving the  world  of  such  catastrophes  as  the 
one  we  witness. 

Conceivably,  when  the  opportunity  shall 
present  itself  to  prepare  the  way  for  such  a 
federation,  it  may  be  lost  through  inaction. 
It  will  require  vision  and  initiative  to  win  its 
possibilities  for  ourselves.  There  is  no  salva- 
tion in  a  mere  ideal,  left  inert.  Reluctance 
to  take  prompt,  even  though  venturesome 
or  perilous,  action  in  a  crisis,  is  not  born 
of  a  love  of  peace,  but  of  something  less 
noble. 

In  rational  forecast,  the  first  semblance  of 
enduring  world  peace  must  come  through 
such  a  federation.  Shall  the  world  strive  for 
that  consummation  at  the  psychological  junc- 
ture afforded  by  the  terrible  affliction  of  the 
present  war,  or  shall  we  through  hesitancy 
and  lack  of  faith  suffer  the  world  to  wait  until 
another  century  shall  bring  a  still  more  bitter 

27 


The   Genesis   of  War  and 

and  agonizing  reminder  of  our  part  and  re- 
sponsibility in  the  great  drama  of  reality? 

We  are,  by  birth,  citizens  of  the  world, 
members  of  the  human  family.  In  modern 
times  ready  communication  and  travel  have 
conferred  upon  that  citizenship  great  risks, 
great  responsibilities  and  great  powers  of  in- 
fluence. This  new  physical  fact  of  increas- 
ingly close  relationship  renders  no  longer 
tenable  the  conventional  fiction  of  the  disin- 
terestedness of  one  nation  in  a  vital  crisis  and 
warfare  between  any  other  two.  This  never 
has  been  fully  true,  at  any  time  in  the  his- 
torical past,  but  has  been  assumed  to  be  true 
merely  because  of  the  practical  difficulties 
and  dangers  to  non-combatant  nations  in  tak- 
ing open  action  in  accordance  with  their 
actual  interests.  But  these  interests  have  fre- 
quently found  expression  in  secret  action  and 
in  the  unofficial  acts  of  private  individuals. 
If,  then,  as  world  citizens,  clearly  conscious 
of  our  interests,  evading  none  of  our  responsi- 
bilities to  ourselves  or  world  society,  or  to 
posterity,  we  are  to  consecrate  ourselves  to 

28 


The  Foundation  of  Peace 

that  ideal  in  the  only  way  we  can  to  any 
ideal — by  suitable  and  immediate  action — 
the  first  objective  must  be  to  insure  the  vic- 
tory of  those  nations  most  in  harmony  with 
the  spirit  of  peace. 


The   Genesis  of W a  r  and 


THE  AREA  OF  CIVILIZATION 

A  FINISHED  consideration  of  ethical  philo- 
sophy, and  likewise  the  sympathetic  insight 
of  a  ripened  experience,  in  seeking  to  formu- 
late the  ultimate  and  sole  principle  of  right 
conduct,  are  both  drawn  to  an  essential  agree- 
ment with  the  Law  of  Justice  offered  above. 

Could  primitive  mankind  have  received 
and  understandingly  lived  this  single  funda- 
mental precept,  the  major  elements  of  Para- 
dise would  immediately  have  been  possessed, 
and  it  could  have  been  embellished  only  by 
their  progress  in  the  material  sciences,  that 
would  have  acquainted  them  with  the  won- 
ders of  their  environment  and  given  them 
dominion  over  it. 

But  the  utility  of  this  ethical  precept  was 
not  apparent  to  them.  They  undertook  life  in 
utter  lack  of  its  guidance.  They  were  unac- 
quainted with  the  close-linked  unity  of  cre- 
ated things;  unsuspecting  of  the  powerful 

30 


T  h  e  F  o  undation  ofPe  ace 

reactions  which  this  unity  precipitates  upon 
any  organic  part  that,  seeking  its  own  good, 
flouts  the  good  of  the  whole.  Upon  the  pur- 
suit of  spontaneous  desire  they  suffered  no 
leash.  It  was  their  stupendous  and  fearful 
task  to  attack  simultaneously  the  problems  of 
dominion  over  environment  and  dominion 
over  self,  each  fateful  problem,  through  their 
simultaneous  presentation,  immeasurably 
complicating  the  other.  Could  such  an  under- 
taking be  set  for  any  race  of  beings  less  than 
god-like  in  their  inherent  capacities? 

Primitive  man  was  boldly,  arrogantly  inno- 
cent of  all  suspicion  that  the  gold  of  this 
precept  awaited  his  far  explorations  in  the 
continent  of  experience.  If  he  wanted  a  thing, 
he  straightway  went  and  took  it — if  he  could. 
If  another  wanted  it  too,  so  much  the  worse 
for  that  other.  This  was,  to  him,  the  unques- 
tioned law  of  his  pursuit  of  the  enterprises  of 
life.  He  applied  it  without  abatement  alike 
to  all  the  creatures  he  preyed  upon  and  to  his 
neighbor,  his  female  associates,  his  half  do- 
mesticated dog  and  horse.  Kindness  paid  no 

31 


T h  e   Genesis  of  W a  rand 

dividends  that  he  had  discerned  and  the  obli- 
gation of  equality  and  fairness,  firmly  inher- 
ent in  life,  was  quite  as  undisclosed  to  his 
thought,  and  would  have  been  as  startling 
and  repellent,  as  the  vision  of  a  thunderous 
dreadnought  on  the  waters  where  he  ven- 
tured with  his  canoe.  Utter  lack  of  consid- 
eration for  other  beings  characterized  all  his 
activities. 

What  countless  generations  of  existence  on 
this  heartless  plan  have  with  tedious  slowness 
successively  sifted  down  into  the  conscious- 
ness of  the  race  their  imponderable  contribu- 
tions to  build  those  deep  and  unrealized 
strata  of  human  experience  and  tendency  that 
bear  upon  their  surface  our  own  hereditary 
and  transient  day! 

When,  in  course  of  time,  to  rid  themselves 
of  the  unbearable  pains  and  the  personal  and 
economic  insecurity  of  habitual,  murderous 
strife,  a  controlling  element  organized  a  primi- 
tive state  and  its  police  power,  no  such  com- 
prehensive ideal  of  conduct  as  that  embodied 
in  the  Law  of  Justice  had  occurred  to  them. 

32 


Th  e  Fo  u  n  da  tio  n  ofPeace 

They  were  only  weary  of  constant  battle  and 
of  the  menace  and  pinch  of  famine.  They  had 
certain  crude  notions  of  justice  and  their  new 
laws  concerned  themselves  only  with  the 
maximum  offenses  against  justice  and  peace. 
A  chief  could  still  sell  his  daughter  for  a  horse 
or  weapon.  He  still  had  power  of  life  or  death 
over  his  female  associates  and  their  progeny. 
Slaves  did  his  menial  tasks,  and  of  their  rank, 
or  barely  above  it,  were  his  wives.  The  ad- 
vance guard  of  what  we  have  now  come  to 
call  civilization,  as  represented  by  the  primi- 
tive tribal  or  civil  state,  took  possession  of 
and  reduced  to  its  idea  of  order  the  narrow 
margins,  only,  of  the  wide-ranging  continent 
of  human  interest  based  upon  social  relation- 
ships. Of  the  black  sum  of  repellent  injustice 
and  cruelty  that  characterized  the  utter  bar- 
barism preceding  the  primitive  civil  state,  its 
laws  restrained  only  those  offenses  primarily 
affecting  the  security  of  person  from  direct 
physical  attack  and  a  sufficient  peace  to  en- 
able industry  to  provide  for  the  economic 
necessities.  All  other  human  affairs  were  left 

33 


T h  e   Genesis   of  W a  rand 

outside  the  pale  of  civilized  order,  immune, 
unregulated,  to  shift  for  themselves  in  the 
perilous  wilderness  of  barbarism. 

In  all  the  subsequent  development  of  civil 
law,  down  to  the  present,  the  basic  motives 
for  the  regulations  added  have  been  these  two 
original  motives  of  the  immunity  of  the  body 
from  direct  physical  violence  and  the  ad- 
vancement of  the  economic  interest  of  the 
classes  in  control.  The  original  marginal 
provinces  of  civilized  order  have  been  some- 
what further  extended.  But,  holding  in  view 
the  entire  scope,  the  full  continent,  of  human 
social  interest,  it  is  clear  that  the  modern 
civilized  state  has  extended  its  control  to  but 
a  small  part  of  it.  The  ethical  principle,  how- 
ever, the  Law  of  Justice,  contemplates  all 
human  relations,  wide-ranging  however  they 
may  be  beyond  the  narrow  scope  of  civil  law, 
and  until  the  wholesome  dominion  of  this 
principle  is  acknowledged  in  their  farthest 
reach  and  in  all  human  contacts  whatsoever, 
human  life  remains  but  partly  and  superfi- 
cially civilized  and  predominantly  unregener- 

34 


T  h  e  Foundation  ofPe  ace 

ate  and  barbaric.  A  social  regime  dominated 
by  an  almost  exclusively  economic  ideal  is  too 
busy  with  this  and  too  blind  to  the  other 
values  of  life  to  reach  out  into  these  remote 
and  hidden  areas  with  any  effective  regula- 
tion or  educative  influence  and  thus  extend  to 
them  the  salvation  of  justice.  In  these  broad 
regions  of  life,  then,  and  by  such  men  as  are 
spiritually  ungrown,  the  instincts  of  savagery 
and  barbarism  remain  unchecked. 

Abiding  security  and  peace  in  human  rela- 
tions rest  exclusively  upon  a  foundation  of 
the  simplest  elements  of  fairness  and  justice. 
Distinct  progress  has  been  made  in  the  direc- 
tion of  this  ideal,  but  in  no  nation  of  the 
world  has  it  been  deeply  and  comprehensively 
established.  In  no  modern  society  do  the 
lives  of  the  people  proceed,  under  the  impulse 
of  their  divinely  implanted  instinctive  desires 
and  aspirations,  to  a  fair  opportunity  for  self- 
expression  and  self-development,  free  from 
the  hindrance  and  blight  of  injustice  at  the 
hands  of  institutions  and  customs,  of  com- 
mercial brigandage,  and  of  the  exempt  and 

35 


The   Genesis  of  War  and 

unregulated  tyrannies  which  weaker  or  dis- 
advantaged  members  of  a  family  commonly 
suffer  at  the  whim  of  the  stronger,  and  which 
children  all  but  universally  experience,  sooner 
or  later,  from  parents,  who  are  inevitably  in 
some  degree  defective  in  wisdom  and  sym- 
pathy. 

In  the  privacy  that  shields  from  public 
knowledge  the  continual  contacts  of  husband 
and  wife,  of  parent  and  child,  and  of  the  mem- 
bers of  any  household  group,  there  is  a  wide 
scope  for  the  exercise  of  injustice  and  bru- 
tality far  within  the  limits  of  the  mere  require- 
ment that  no  law  shall  be  violated.  It  is  no 
exaggeration  to  say  that  here  is  a  jungle  of 
bitter  wrong  that  lies,  uninterfered  with,  be- 
yond the  pale  of  order  and  distinctly  within 
the  outer  wilderness  of  unregenerate  barbar- 
ism, where  cruelty,  cunning  and  might  may 
rove  practically  unchecked. 

Not  only  does  substantially  the  entire  re- 
gion of  domestic  life,  the  "sacred  precincts  of 
home,"  lie  beyond  any  real  control  and  at 
the  mercy  of  the  one  who  is  in  a  position  of 

36 


T  h  e  Foundation  ofPe  ace 

advantage  there,  but  to  a  very  great  extent 
do  all  other  relationships,  between  neighbors, 
between  employer  and  employed,  between 
those  who  meet  socially,  also  lie  beyond  the 
boundaries  of  any  effective  regulation  or  in- 
fluence. The  law  does  not,  and  usually  can- 
not, directly  concern  itself  with  them  and 
public  opinion  is  too  easily  evaded  or  duped, 
and  in  itself  is  too  passionate,  whimsical  and 
diverse  to  redeem  these  areas  of  life  and  bring 
them  within  the  realm  of  order  and  peace. 
Enumerate  in  your  thought  the  constant 
violations  of  justice  that  go  on  in  these  out- 
lying preserves  of  native  barbarism.  Reflect 
upon  the  petty  imposition  and  rudeness;  the 
bald  selfishness;  the  insolence  offered  in  the 
security  of  superior  physical  or  economic 
strength;  or  behind  the  sacred  screen  of  pre- 
tended domestic  harmony  upheld  before  the 
world;  the  clever  venom  of  conventionally 
correct  innuendo,  gossip  and  safely  placed 
slander;  the  rude  repression  of  the  efferves- 
cent spirit  of  childhood  and  youth;  the  bland 
denial  of  youth's  choice  of  a  career,  or  of  a 

37 


The   Genesis  of  W^  a  r  and 

mate;  the  barren  and  accusing  wastes  in 
child  life  that  mark  the  absence  of  the  Mon- 
tessori  ideal  in  our  care  of  the  young;  the 
devastating  injustice  of  those  phases  of  the 
industrial  system  that  have  so  far  fended  off 
legal  control. 

A  man  may  not  steal  a  loaf  of  bread,  but 
he  may  say  to  another  who  has  labored  faith- 
fully with  him  and  taken  the  wage  of  forty 
years,  "My  need  of  thee  hath  ceased;  find 
thy  living  elsewhere/' 

He  may,  through  the  devices  of  adroit  and 
magnetic  salesmanship,  profit  his  own  purse 
by  burdening  the  inexperienced  with  pur- 
chases it  were  clearly  not  to  their  interest  to 
make. 

He  may  conserve  his  comfortably  salaried 
position  as  pastor  of  a  church  of  the  prosper- 
ous, touching  with  language  deferential  and 
unctuous  to  the  hearts  of  his  parish  the  moral 
aspects  of  the  ceaselessly  intensifying  social- 
economic  crisis;  he  may  do  this,  inwardly 
conscious  of  the  hypocrisy  of  his  course  as  an 
ordained  minister  of  untainted  Christ-truth 

38 


T  h  e  Foundation  of  Peace 

to  the  world;  he  may  do  this,  knowing  that 
an  increasingly  conspicuous  number  of  his 
brother  shepherds,  stung  by  the  inadequacy 
of  helpful  thought  and  act  to  which  their  zeal 
is  firmly  limited  by  the  thrifty  conservatism 
of  the  church,  are  throwing  off  its  uniform, 
renouncing  its  support,  and  striding  forth  into 
a  more  sincere  and  precarious  crusade  where 
the  intellect  and  heart  may  speak  from  con- 
viction and  faith.  He  may  thus  preserve  him- 
self and  his  own  in  softness  and  abundance 
while  seeking  in  a  measure  to  buy  an  indul- 
gence for  his  writhing  soul  by  confessing,  in  a 
funk  of  moral  weakness  and  desire  for  con- 
doning sympathy,  to  a  perfectly  safe  confes- 
sor, the  sad  predicament  to  which  his  hope- 
ful ministry  has  brought  him.  It  is  well 
known  that  numbers  have  made  this  confes- 
sion. He  may  do  this  dastardly  betrayal  of  a 
sacred  trust,  gathered  within  whose  province 
and  mission  are  the  highest  earthly  oppor- 
tunities of  an  intelligent  and  sympathetic 
being;  he  may  bring  dishonor  to  the  office  of 
a  priest  of  truth,  he  may  use  it  to  mislead 

39 


T  h  e   Genesis  of  W a  rand 

his  people,  but  he  may  not  steal  a  loaf  of 
bread  to  feed  the  unfairly  dispossessed  and 
starving. 

It  is  further  illuminating  to  observe  that 
in  even  those  narrow  areas  of  life  which  the 
law  assumes  to  specifically  control,  our  courts 
are  crowded  with  the  business  of  keeping  in 
check  attempted  subversions  of  legally  pre- 
scribed justice. 

A  thoughtful  mind  can  hardly  deny  that 
the  quality  of  our  social  life  is  deeply  dis- 
colored with  the  willingness  to  live  in  viola- 
tion of  the  primal  and  instinctive  Law  of 
Justice,  is  deeply  characterized  by  the  settled 
habit  of  so  living,  and  is  agonized  and  restless 
with  the  accumulating  pain  of  its  results. 

Is  such  a  world  a  domain  of  peace?  The 
guns  of  war  may  not  at  the  moment  thunder 
and  rend,  but  the  maggots  of  injustice  worry 
and  gnaw  within  all  our  life.  The  spirit  of  war 
broods  over  our  thought,  and  all  the  imple- 
ments of  war — of  antagonism,  invasion, 
espionage,  dissembling,  siege  and  conquest — 
those  intangible  weapons  which  are  not  denied 

40 


T  h  e  Foundation  ofPe  ace 

to  us  by  the  civil  law,  are  ruthlessly  employed 
at  the  prompting  of  that  spirit  of  conquest 
in  battling  for  our  narrowly  conceived  in- 
terests, while  uncomprehendingly  we  speak 
of  the  world  as  enjoying  a  season  of  peace. 
But,  "Peace,  oh  Virtue,  peace  is  all  thine 
own."  Any  violation  whatsoever  of  the  one 
moral  virtue,  of  the  principle  of  justice,  of 
equal  opportunity  in  life,  whether  between 
individuals  or  groups,  brings  a  state  of  an- 
tagonism and  essential  warfare.  It  may  pass 
into  a  phase  of  cowed  submission,  but  the 
elements  of  warfare  have  been  evoked  by 
injustice,  and  violent  outbreak  waits  only 
upon  a  sufficient  opportunity.  The  frequency 
with  which  this  seething,  underlying  warfare 
in  social  life  breaks  the  imposed  conventions 
and  seizes  upon  even  the  forbidden  weapons 
of  sudden  death  is  a  confirmation  of  its  per- 
ennial existence  and  intensity. 


The  Genesis  of  War  and 

1  HE  ethical  relations  between  individuals 
are  a  true  type  of  those  between  nations. 
When  we  emerge  to  the  study  of  the  ethical 
relations  between  nations,  or  groups  of  allied 
nations,  we  find  there  is  no  organized  power 
superior  to  them  which  may  undertake  the 
authoritative  regulation  of  international  con- 
tacts. And,  just  as  those  affairs  of  individual 
life  lying  outside  the  scope  of  the  state's  legal 
regulation  thereby  lie  in  a  region  of  unre- 
straint, and  one  of  barbaric  injustice  and 
cruelty  precisely  to  the  extent  to  which  the 
persons  concerned  are  of  undeveloped  charac- 
ter, not  giving  voluntary  obedience  to  the 
Law  of  Justice,  so  even  to  a  greater  extent  do 
the  affairs  between  nations  lie  outside,  in  this 
unredeemed  region,  and  wholly  at  the  mercy 
of  whatever  degree  of  character  development 
may  be  possessed  by  the  classes  who  direct 
the  affairs  of  the  various  states. 

And,  if  a  marked  and  even  characteristic 
quality  of  average  individual  human  life, 
when  ranging  free  from  restraint  in  the  un- 

42 


T  h  e  F  o  un  d  a  ti  o  n  ofPeac  e 

supervised  regions  of  experience,  be  one  so 
largely  unregenerate,  conspicuously  unkind 
and  unfair,  as  pointed  out  above,  one  pro- 
voking marked  antagonism  and  unrest  in  the 
personal  relations,  discoloring  the  whole  social 
life  with  the  dark  tinge  of  resentment  and 
strife,  how  may  we  expect  that  from  such  a 
corrupt  fountain  of  individual  conduct  a  sat- 
isfying justice,  order  and  beneficent  peace 
shall  flow  forth  in  that  similarly  unsupervised 
and  irresponsible  region  where  the  nations 
meet  and  parley?  And  when  international 
war,  thus  unavoidably  arising  in  this  ungov- 
erned  region,  spreads  its  hot  and  stinging 
devastation  throughout  all  human  life,  at  the 
spur  of  desperate  necessities,  how  stupid  to 
supplicate  either  the  heavens  or  the  warring 
units  to  give  us  peace,  conceived  as  mere 
cessation  from  present  armed  conflict,  and  to 
leave,  untouched  and  unappealed  to,  those 
red  fountains  of  injustice,  intolerance,  and 
essential  warfare  that  flow  on  and  on  in  all 
our  social  life,  ceaselessly  providing  the  re- 
sistless antecedent  conditions,  the  momentum 

43 


T h  e    Genesis  of  W a  rand 

of  habits  and  tendencies,  that  render  it 
wholly  impossible  that  the  world  escape  the 
logical  sequence — international  war — when- 
ever some  nation,  representing  but  a  group  of 
these  unregenerate  individuals  operating  in 
an  ungoverned  region,  finds  itself  in  a  posi- 
tion of  advantage.  How  hopeless  the  dream 
of  universal  and  securely  established  peace 
until  the  world  is  regenerated  at  the  fountain 
head  of  all  social  conditions — the  individual's 
understanding  and  accustomed  life. 

I  have  said  that  modern  society  is  super- 
ficially civilized  and  predominatingly  unre- 
generate and  barbaric.  I  believe  that  a  full 
recognition  of  this  truth  is  a  vital  requisite  to 
anyone's  sociological  understanding  and  use- 
fulness. We  love  justice;  but  few  hearts  there 
be  that  are  regenerated  beyond  the  possi- 
bility of  yielding  under  severe  stress  and  in- 
flicting upon  others  recognized  injustice  and 
loss  that  they  may  preserve  possessions  dear 
unto  themselves.  We  love  peace  and  human 
sympathy;  but  the  protean  weapon  of  Force 
lays  ready  at  the  prompt  handof  each oneof  us. 

44 


The  Foundation  of  Peace 

The  idea  of  individual  guilt  for  these 
threatening  conditions,  however,  has  little 
place  in  rational  thought.  Distinctions  of 
race  and  national  feeling  and  the  many  an- 
tagonisms of  personal  interest  are — until 
comes  the  transforming  miracle  of  the  dawn- 
ing of  a  new  belief,  and  the  freedom  to  live  it 
— quite  as  insuperable  barriers  to  an  abiding 
peace  as  are  the  distinctions  of  structure  and 
disposition  that  set  the  animal  species  against 
each  other  in  irrevocable  enmity. 

All  this  warfare  so  stands  confirmed  and 
inevitable  in  the  Plan.  In  human  affairs  it 
will  continue  until  that  magic  moment  when 
the  concept  of  a  world-wide  brotherhood  and 
equality  of  opportunity  shall  gain  ascendancy 
and  lay  a  beneficent  hand  of  adequate  physi- 
cal power  upon  the  helm  of  human  affairs. 

I  am  far  from  despairing  of  the  human  raw 
material.  It  is  quite  good  enough.  The  great 
need  is  to  free  it  from  the  tremendous  handi- 
cap of  unjust  social  and  economic  institutions, 
grown  up  without  human  intent  or  realiza- 
tion, which  now  practically  impose  upon  men 

45 


The    Genesis    o  f  W a  r 

self-preservation's  mandate  of  necessity  to 
individually  resort  to  an  equal  injustice,  in 
self-defense;  to  follow  this  freedom  by  giving 
to  the  young,  and  to  all,  the  best  instruction, 
most  protecting  care  and  sympathetic  guid- 
ance the  composite  wisdom  of  the  race  can 
devise,  devoting  to  such  care  of  the  young 
probably  from  one-quarter  to  one-third  of  the 
entire  material  resources  of  society  and  a  like 
part  of  its  labor  time.  Humanity  is  charged 
and  vital  with  inherent  good,  and  will  re- 
spond to  these  fundamental  necessities  as 
gloriously  as  vegetation  responds  to  the  bene- 
ficent springtime  and  intelligent  care.  This 
task  is  beyond  the  ideals  and  beyond  the 
resources  of  any  national  effort  that  is  not 
cooperative  in  the  most  devoted  and  thorough- 
going sense.  But  it  represents  the  exclusive 
means  of  arresting  our  progress  toward  an 
anti-climax  and  of  catching  the  upward  swing 
of  the  cycle  toward  a  beneficent  destiny. 


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